Barack Obama won because he recognized a New America.
The President managed only 39 percent of the white vote, the lowest white percentage recorded for a winning national candidate, and suffered a 12-point swing against him among independent voters, but won both the popular vote and an Electoral College landslide by energizing voters we describe as the Rising American Electorate.
These voters—unmarried women, young people, Hispanics, and African Americans—not only delivered huge margins to the incumbent—nearly matching 2008 totals among unmarried women and African Americans, exceeding 2008 among Hispanics—but also turned out in ever greater numbers. [cont.]
Page Gardner, Stan Greenberg, Erica Seifert, David Walker